Both companies maintain a pulse and accuse each other of bad practices, something that has culminated in the withdrawal of Fortnite from iOS.
Epic Games has plunged into the ocean of legal litigation to expose Apple’s decision to remove Fortnite from the App Store. They accuse the North American giant of malpractice, while the apple company responds with its own complaints, since they believe that the creators of the most successful battle royale in the market are requesting special treatment. Be that as it may, Microsoft and its video game division, Xbox, have filed a statement in court to prevent the crash of the Unreal Engine, owned by Epic Games, from negatively affecting developers.
It was announced by Phil Spencer himself, head of the Xbox division, in a post on Twitter in which he also attached the document of the complaint. “Today we have processed a statement in support of Epic’s request to maintain access to the Apple SDK for its Unreal Engine. Ensuring that Epic has access to Apple technology is the right thing to do for developers and gamers alike, ”says Spencer.
Today we filed a statement in support of Epic’s request to keep access to the Apple SDK for its Unreal Engine. Ensuring that Epic has access to the latest Apple technology is the right thing for gamer developers & gamers https://t.co/72bLdDkvUx
– Phil Spencer (@ XboxP3) August 23, 2020
Microsoft warns of the dangers of this decision
The truth is that the inability to update the Unreal Engine on Apple devices will be detrimental to all those developers who are already working on their projects with this graphics engine. Because the tools cannot be updated, projects will not be able to launch normally on iOS and macOS operating systems. “Many of these creators do not have the resources or capabilities to create their own engine, so they rely on technology from third-pary companies,” explains Microsoft’s Kevin Gammill in the public document.
“As a result,” the Redmond continues, “Unreal Engine is one of the most popular third-party game engines available to video game creators. From Microsoft’s point of view ”, there are not many other options that can compete with the tools of the multiplatform technology of Epic Games. This does not exclusively affect small studios, but also Xbox, since Unreal Engine is one of the engines that they use the most. As they develop for different platforms, the Americans say that if this issue is not solved they will have to decide between abandoning the macOS and iOS customers or choosing a new graphics engine for their products.
Source | Xbox
